I have a PHP video game site (GameObserver.com) that’s been around for a couple of years and would like to expand it. The site is custom made. As you can see it doesn’t have too many features, just basic news, previews, reviews and editorial. It needs all the usual stuff we have in similar game sites: comments, forums, various user functions like blogs, etc. Besides the occasional free games I can’t pay for any of the work yet, but I also wouldn’t have any demands or deadlines. I just need someone to join the team and be part of this crazy ride until the site becomes profitable, at which point your experience would make you an invaluable employee. What I’m basically looking for is a resident designer since large game portals require constant work and expansion.

GO isn’t generating any money because it doesn’t have much traffic: PR of 3, Alexa of 4 million and about 50 unique visitors per day (used to have an Alexa of 350K). That’s pretty lame no matter how you slice it but I started the site with the minimal amount of features so I could sharpen my web maintenance skills. I didn’t care about traffic. Hell, I didn’t want too much traffic because I didn’t want people to see how bare-boned the site was. It’s been a test run so far to get comfortable with all the facets of managing a game portal; now I want to fully submerge myself. I’m a translator (French to English), editor and writer by profession, not some kid.

GO always commands respect whenever I take on a project with major developers, like interviews with Bethesda, Paradox, Activision, etc. The site also has over 500 well-written editor reviews and over 7500 games in its database, each with their own page, not to mention all the editorials, previews and news articles, so the potential is there. What the site lacks is the obvious… So, any crazies out there?

P.S. I’ve dabbled with various CMS’ like Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, and though they’re all nice and dandy, my backend does everything those management systems can with 1/10th of the hassle, so switching would take some convincing.